


Help Me Find A Way To Breathe

by DashFlintceschi



Category: Bring Me The Horizon
Genre: Horror, Kean being a bit of an arsehole, M/M, Oli being a weirdo, Psychological Horror, Slender Man - Freeform, Sykescest, grave robbing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-08
Updated: 2014-05-08
Packaged: 2018-01-24 00:36:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 15
Words: 18,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1585247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DashFlintceschi/pseuds/DashFlintceschi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Matt Nicholls has, what seems at the time, a brilliant idea. Make a series of Slenderman videos while on tour, post them online acting as though the whole thing is real, and see how many of their fans they can convince that it's real. Everyone involved thinks it's the best fun they've had in a while, and the best idea Nicholls has had in years, but then something strange starts happening to Oli, and suddenly, it doesn't seem like such a good idea anymore.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It started innocently enough. We were sitting in Tom’s flat, him, the band and me, when Nicholls came up with the idea.  
“Hey, since Tom’s coming out on this next tour with us, why don’t we film, like, a fake horror thing and post it online as if it’s real? See how many folk we can convince and laugh at them freaking out?” He suggested, and we all laughed, agreeing and starting up a discussion about the best route to take. Finally, we decided on the Slenderman story, agreeing that everything else had been done to death.

We did our research; watched videos online of other people’s attempts at making a believable story out of it, read endless blogs and read every page related to it that we could find. Finally, we felt ready to start our little project. We decided to start small, posting a short video to Instagram, YouTube and Tumblr that mostly consisted of blurry shots of Tom’s flat and my face on grainy night vision, and a few blurry, half decent shots of Jordan costumed as Slenderman on the street below. Tom lived on the seventh floor, so it was close enough to get a half decent shot, but far away enough that we wouldn’t give the game away too quickly.

_The camera stutters to life, the screen dark and a clattering sound filling the microphone as Tom’s sleep-clumsy hands struggle to get a decent hold of the camera. It goes silent, and after a few quiet clicks, the screen turns green as the night vision activates. Once Tom’s sure the camera is on and focused, he starts talking as he walks out of his bedroom.  
“Ok, so Oli ended up crashing at mine tonight, and we were just woken up by this weird noise. When we went looking, we found this weird guy out in the middle of the street, standing there in a fucking fancy business suit, just standing completely still, not doing anything.” The camera judders slightly as he thumps down the stairs and makes his way into the living room. _

_He crosses to the open balcony door, where I’m standing, peeking around the curtains.  
“He’s still there. He hasn’t moved at all since we spotted him. What the fuck is he doing?” I ask as Tom edges around me to stand at the other side of the doorway, carefully aiming the camera around the curtain to get a good shot of the guy standing outside. The camera focuses on him for a few seconds, then he slowly begins to turn around. Just as he’s fully facing us, Tom and I both swear loudly, the camera loses focus and begins to crackle with static, then cuts off._

It wasn’t much, but it got the ball rolling, and we were pretty chuffed with it. When morning came, comments came with it. It seemed we’d timed it just right, so that no-one noticed that Jordan didn’t have a face, and no-one seemed to be thinking of Slenderman or calling bullshit. Within a few hours of the first comments appearing on each website, we had hundreds of comments on each, most along the lines of ‘That’s so weird!’ ‘What’s that creep up to?’ and my favourite ‘OMG, get out of there, he’s going to butt rape both of you!’ 

We all gathered round at Tom’s and split into three groups of two, each group taking a website and combing meticulously through the comments, to make sure no-one had caught us out. It took a while, as comments continued pouring in as we were checking them, but in the end, not a single person had called our bluff. 

When we were finally finished checking, and we realised we’d gotten away with it, we let out a cheer, opening a beer each in celebration. If only we’d known what we had just gotten ourselves into.


	2. Chapter 2

The next few weeks passed quickly. We were mostly packing and getting ready for the tour, but we always checked the comments on our video at least once a day, and still no-one had figured us out.

The first day of the tour rolled around, and it was also the day we planned to film the next video. We’d gotten a friend of ours, Matt Godfrey, to help out. He modelled for Drop Dead, and was tall and lanky, exactly what we needed for Slender. We decided to still play dumb, as though we didn’t realise there was anything weird about the guy.

_The camera slowly pans around, showing Matt, Lee, Vegan and Jordan standing outside, next to a tour bus, looking impatient. Lee checks his watch and tuts, then turns to the camera.  
“Where the fuck is he?” He huffs impatiently, and Tom’s voice comes from behind the camera.  
“I don’t know. I’m his brother, not his fuckin’ keeper.” Tom snaps back, just as Vegan lets out a sarcastic cheer.  
“His Majesty finally decided to join us!” He snarks as I come rushing around the corner with my gear.  
“Sorry, I’m late, I know. I went to drop Oskar off at mum and dad’s and mum just would not stop talking!” I explain as I throw my gear into the space under the bus._

_There’s a few minutes of us loading our stuff on to the bus as we joke back and forth, then Jordan turns and starts.  
“Woah, who the fuck is that?” He asks quickly, and the rest of us spin round, the screen blurring nauseatingly as Tom follows.  
“That’s the guy! The creep that was outside Tom’s flat!” I whisper loudly, so as not to attract the attention of the eerie, suited man standing on the corner._

_The camera starts fizzing with distortion, and Tom swears softly.  
“Hang on, something’s wrong with the card.” He tells us, and through the static, you can just make out the five of us approaching the figure. I get to the corner and start to reach to tap him on the shoulder, when the picture is lost to static completely for a few seconds, the sound distorting so that the warped sounds of us cursing in surprise are only just heard._

_The picture and sound come back, and show the five of us staring at each other and Tom in bewilderment.  
“He‘s gone. He was there two seconds ago, but he’ s nowhere to be seen now.” Matt explains, and we stare at each other in shocked silence for a few seconds, until Tom turns the camera off._

The second we were done filming, Matt came back around the corner and pulled the mask off, his long hair bouncing back down onto his shoulders as he grinned at us.   
“How’d I do?” He asked with a laugh, and Vegan clapped him on the shoulder with a grin of his own.  
“Fuckin’ fantastic, mate! Exactly what we needed.” He told him as the rest of us nodded in agreement.

We’d asked Matt to come on this tour with us, since only Jordan and I had the right build out of all of us for Slenderman, and we agreed that it would be a bit suspicious if every time Slender appeared, Jordan or I were miraculously nowhere to be found. Since Matt had the right build and no-one expected us to be on tour with us, he’d agreed to come and do a bit of acting for us. The only downside was that whenever we were filming normal tour stuff, he’d have to hide out of sight of the camera, and he’d have to be careful going from the bus into venues or wandering around whichever city we were in. If too many people spotted him around, our cover would be blown.

We re-did a few scenes, then finished loading everything into the bus once we were happy with the footage we had. Once everything was loaded, we hung around outside the bus for a few minutes, waiting while Lee, Tom, Nicholls and our driver got one last cigarette before the long drive. I got slightly bored when an argument started over which instrument was most difficult to maintain, with Tom chiming in about how maintaining camera equipment was harder than any instrument. I started wandering back and forth on the pavement, pacing to the corner we’d had Matt hide around, then back to the back end of the bus and back again.

After a few minutes of pacing, I got to the corner again, and started to turn and head back, when I caught sight of something from the corner of my eye. I spun back to face the corner parallel to the one I was on and snorted. Matt was standing there watching me, Slenderman mask back in place. He must have been damn quick to get there without me noticing.

I jokingly showed him my middle finger, then turned and started to walk back to where the others were, only to frown in confusion. Matt was standing with the others where I’d left him, mask off and laughing at something Nicholls had said. I looked back over my shoulder as I stumbled to a stop next to them. The corner was empty. I jumped violently and spun back around as a hand touched my shoulder. It was Tom, forehead furrowed in concern.  
“Liv? Are you alri- Shit, someone get a tissue or something!” He cut himself off, and I watched in confusion as they all dug in their pockets, until Tom produced one of the bandanas he kept for cleaning his camera lenses, then pressed it under my nose as he grabbed the back of my head and forced me to tilt it forward. I hadn’t even noticed my nose was bleeding.

It stopped quite quickly, and I handed the bandana back to him. They were all staring at me warily, though.  
“You on drugs or somethin’ mate? Your eyes are all bloodshot.” Lee asked slowly, and I laughed at him. I tried to reassure them that I was fine, and that I certainly was _not_ on drugs, but my chest started rattling, and I started coughing and wheezing so hard I was doubled over, panicking slightly as I fought to draw breath and realised I couldn’t.

Finally, the coughing stopped, and I was able to draw in a wheezing, rattling breath as I slumped against Tom, who’d had his arms around me anyway as he tried to helping through the coughing fit. I felt him rub my back soothingly as the others crowded around, endless questions about how I felt being fired at me from all sides, until I held up my hand to quiet them.  
“I’m fine, just tired. I just want to get onto the bus and lie down for a while.” I told them hoarsely, and before any of them could start badgering me again, Tom hauled me up to a mostly standing position and mostly carried me onto the bus.


	3. Chapter 3

I slept for most of the drive to Cardiff, the first stop on the tour, but it didn’t seem to have done me any good. I felt even more tired than before; I still had that slightly frightening rattle in my chest, though thankfully I didn’t have another coughing fit, I was still coughing wetly every few minutes; my whole body was aching; and I felt like I was going to puke any second.

When I staggered into the living room area of the bus, Matt, Tom and the rest of the band were sitting talking. They fell silent when they saw me, giving me mixed looks of shock and worry.  
“How d’you feel, mate?” Nicholls asked softly, but Lee scoffed before I could answer.  
“He looks like shit, he can’t be feeling much better.” He snarked, making me give him a weak smile as I flopped down between Jordan and Tom.  
“To be honest, mate, I probably feel worse than I look.” I told him, causing them all to give me even more worried looks.

I turned to Matt and quickly changed the subject, before anyone could start fussing over me again.  
“So how did you do that earlier?” I asked, his face instantly scrunching up in confusion.  
“How’d I do what?” He asked, and I laughed slightly.  
“Get from the bus to the corner and back again so quickly. You know, right before I had my little spazz attack.” I elaborated, frowning as every pair of eyes turned to stare at me in confusion.  
“What? He didn’t go anywhere.” Vegan told me, and I sighed in frustration.  
“Very funny, well done, you managed to fuck with my head. C’mon, no jokes now, how’d you do it?” I insisted, narrowing my eyes as they all looked at each other with growing worry.

Finally, Tom gently gripped my arm, his thumb rubbing soothing circles into my skin.  
“Liv, he didn’t do anything. He never moved from where he was standing the whole time you were walking around.” He told me softly, and I started getting confused.  
“There was someone there, though, I swear! He was wearing the exact same suit and he had a fucking blank mask on!” I insisted desperately, and Jordan shrugged.  
“No-one’s saying there wasn’t, Liv, we’re just saying it wasn’t Matt. Maybe it was someone else fucking with you. You see videos of people doing it for a prank on YouTube all the time.” He attempted to placate me, but all I could think about was whether I’d actually seen someone or not. I’d been lost in thought when I saw him, and I’d been thinking about ideas for our next video. Could I have imagined him?

The rest of the day went by without incident; we arrived at the venue, using the distraction of the crew unloading our gear and taking it into the venue to sneak past the growing line of loudly chattering fans and into the building. Once we’d gotten our bearings, making sure we knew where our dressing room, showers and toilets were, and how to get to the stage, we all went out to meet the fans, including several nutters who’d been there since the night before. Once everyone was happy, we went wandering around the city for a while, trying to ignore the gaggle of slightly creepy girls who’d followed us from the venue; staying a few feet back at all times, giggling and whispering loudly every time one of us did more than breathe.

There were a few issues during sound check; the lights kept flickering on and off and the amps kept emitting an odd, whining, high pitched static. Also, I could’ve sworn I saw the Slender look-a-like standing behind the bar, but a quick glance showed that Matt was still helping Tom set up the merch table, and when I looked back to the bar, the figure was gone.

As with almost every tour, I watched the support bands from the side of the stage, A band from Manchester called Sonic Boom Six and You Me At Six. During Sonic Boom Six’s set, I noticed their singer/bassist, Barney, double-take several times as he glanced out at the crowd. When they came off stage, I was congratulating them on a fantastic set, when he said it.  
“Y’know, I could’ve sworn I saw a guy with no face in the crowd a few times. Funny what the lights can do to your eyes, eh?” He laughed happily, clapping my shoulder as he followed his band mates to their dressing room.

By the time You Me At Six had finished playing an amazing set, and the crew finished the last bit of set-up for our gear, I’d managed to shake of the cold, clammy feeling I’d had all day. The only problem was, I was over-heating now, sweat running down my face and dampening my Drop Dead vest before I’d even gone near the stage. 

When we got the signal that the stage was ready when we were, I quickly shook off the feeling of desperately wanting to lie down and put my game face on. I managed the set pretty well, apart from when the heat got to much for me and my head started spinning. When it cleared, I was sitting on the stage, my band mates surrounding me looking worried. I’d reassured them, made a joke to the crowd about hangovers, and got through the rest of the set, barely.

Once we’d all gotten cleaned up and spent some time outside with the fans who’d waited, all three bands and our crews converged on our bus to celebrate a successful first night of tour. Someone was sent out on a booze run, and before long, everyone had a beer or a glass in their hands, and a toast was being cheered out to our success. Once that was done, I flung myself down onto the couch between Dan and Sonic Boom Six’s drummer, Nick, and struck up a conversation.

“Liv? Liv, what are you doing?” I felt a hand harshly shaking my shoulder, and my eyes flew open. I instantly gasped and jumped back when I realised I was hair’s breadth away from a brick wall. I looked around, and realised I was outside, the wall belonging to the venue, and I was only wearing a thin t-shirt and boxers. Tom was standing next to me, his hand still on my shoulder as he gave me a look that held both bewilderment and concern.  
“Liv? What’re you doing?” He repeated, softer this time. 

I chewed my bottom lip as I continued looking around, trying to figure out what the hell I was doing.   
“I don’t know. The last thing I remember is talking to Dan and Nick.” My voice was wavering, whether from the cold or the fear that was rising in my gut, I didn’t know.  
“That was five hours ago. Is that recording?” He asked, his voice still soft and gentle, as though he thought I would bolt like a frightened horse at any loud noise.

It took me a moment to realise what he’d said, then glanced down to see one of his cameras nestled in my left hand. I checked the screen and nodded, the red ‘record’ dot was flashing, but so were the ‘battery low’ and ‘memory full’ icons.  
“Yeah, but the tape’s either running out of time or already has ran out, so I don’t know what it caught.” I mumbled, and he nodded, gently gripping my elbow and tugging me towards the bus.  
“Come on, we’ll plug it into my laptop and see what it did catch.” He soothed, draping his hoodie over my shoulders as he guided me back to the bus.


	4. Chapter 4

As soon as we stepped onto the bus, a blanket was wrapped around me over Tom’s hoodie and a mug of tea was pushed into my hands. All three bands were crowded in the living room of our bus, but no-one was saying anything and they were all keeping their distance. I was a little hurt at first, thinking they thought I was a freak or something, but a quick glance at Tom made me realise they were backing off because of the warning glare he was giving them, which I’ll admit to being thankful for. I didn’t want them backing away from me, but I didn’t think I could handle that many people crowding me and fussing.

Tom led me over to a couch, the others following and watching curiously as we sat and Tom retrieved his laptop from it’s bag, tucked safely under a table. He quickly powered it up, and after a brief struggle with tangled cables, he connected the camera to it. Both devices made a few chirping noises as they identified each other and transferred information, and it didn’t take long for a small bubble to appear in the corner of the laptop screen. ‘Received Files Configured.’ We let out a collective sigh, and Tom clicked on the bubble, a video immediately popping up on the screen.

 _The screen is pitch black, the sound of several voices trying to talk over each other almost deafening. There’s a clattering, and the screen lights up in the greenish hues of night vision, just as a voice lifts up over the rest.  
“Liv? Where’re you going?” It’s Nicholls, there’s a pause before my voice replies from behind the camera, wavering and unsure.  
“I snagged a cig off of Lee, I’m just going for a wander while I smoke it, so Tom won’t go off on one.” I call back, lifting the cigarette in my hand to show him._

I stopped smoking almost a year ago, and I’d been doing quite well. I was pretty sure I hadn’t smoked it, since my mouth didn’t taste like an ashtray, and I told Tom so as I met his reproachful look without quailing.  
“I think it must have been an excuse. I keep thinking I can see that guy all over the place. I probably thought I saw him and used it to go out and follow him or something.” I told them, and while I still had no memory of the last five hours, it seemed like something I would do, and I couldn’t think of any other reason why I’d lie about it. Tom sighed and nodded, quickly accepting my reasoning. He had no reason not to, I’d never been able to lie to him. With that, we all turned back to the video as Tom pressed play again.

_I stumble across the car park, swearing softly as the gravel cuts into my bare feet. The camera starts fizzing and spitting as I speed up, almost running across the car park. Through the snow periodically covers the screen, a silhouette of a man is barely visible as it becomes obvious that he’s what I’m rushing towards.  
“Hey! Who the fuck are you?! What do you want?!” My voice is crackly and barely distinguishable over the intensifying static as I start fully running towards the figure, who is unmoving and seems not to have noticed my presence._

_I finally reach him, grabbing the front of his suit with my free hand and spinning him around to face me. The static cuts out the visual altogether, but the audio stays just long enough to hear me demand to know the figure’s identity again, then let out a scream of pure terror. The audio cuts then, just the fizz of static and garbled sounds as colours and jumbled pictures flit through the static._

After several minutes of messed up footage, Tom let out a sigh and began skipping ahead.  
“I’ll try to fix this part later, but I’ll just find the next watchable part right now.” He mumbled to the air as his finger clicks the mouse rapidly, skipping ahead in thirty second blips at a time. He skips past three hours of garbled footage before the picture comes back.

_The camera focuses on my face, and even with the night vision making my eyes huge and shiny like a gerbil’s, it’s easy to see they’re glazed and unfocused. A trickle of blood runs from my nose and the corner of my mouth in almost perfect tandem as I take a shuddering breath, a sickeningly wet rattle rising from my chest.  
“I don’t know where I am, I don’t know where I’ve been. It doesn’t feel right, this place. It’s strange, surreal, like a nightmare. Something’s stalking me, following me through these… Woods, or forest. Oh god, it’s coming.” The trees start rustling all around me, the camera starting to fizz again as I try to run. I barely manage to take a few steps, and the figure appears from nowhere, mere inches from me. The screen turns to static and skittering colours again, but only for a few seconds. When it comes back, the picture is simply a flinch inducing close up of the venue wall, complete silence reigns, barring the usual night sounds._

Tom starts skipping ahead again as the rest of us stare at the screen in scared, shocked silence. It stays exactly the same until three minutes before the end. The swoosh of the bus door opening filled the room, then Tom’s voice rang out.  
“I found him, but he’s… I don’t know what he’s doing. Liv! Get in here, it’s freezing!” The video went silent for a few seconds, then the crunch of Tom’s feet hitting the gravel as he stepped down from the bus and sped over to me, calling my name again. We finally got to the part I remembered as the camera jumped back from the wall, our mumbled conversation barely audible. The screen blurred slightly as I turned to face Tom, then began fizzing slightly as a now familiar figure became visible in the shadows behind Tom, silently watching as he coaxed me back onto the bus.

The bus was eerily silent as we all stared at the screen, no-one noticing or caring as the video closed and revealed the laptop’s background, a photo of Tom and I at his birthday party a few months before, pulling stupid faces and most likely drunk. Almost ten minutes go past in shocked silence, until Josh’s hoarse whisper breaks it.  
“What the fuck just happened?”


	5. Chapter 5

It took about an hour, several cups of tea and a few shots for everyone to calm down, but eventually everyone else had gone to bed, leaving me lying with my head in Tom’s lap as he tapped away at his laptop, trying to clear up the distorted footage with one hand as the other absently played with my hair in an attempt to calm me, my breathing turning harsh and ragged every now and again as I struggled to banish what I’d seen from my mind.

It was just starting to get light when Vegan and Jordan staggered in from the bunks and flopped down across from us.   
“Hey, couldn’t sleep?” Tom asked distractedly, tapping a little faster and clicking the mouse pad almost violently.  
“Nah, couldn’t get the image of Liv on that video out of my head.” Vegan replied, and Tom started shushing him harshly.  
“Don’t! I’m not sure if he’s asleep or not, the last thing he needs is us reminding him!” He hissed, his hand, which had moved down to rub the back of my neck, tightening around it. I was lying with my eyes closed, my whole body completely lax since I’d managed to stop freaking out half an hour before.

I sighed and sat up, nudging Tom to get him to drop the angry glare he was giving Vegan.  
“It’s alright, I was awake. I don’t mind anyone mentioning it, I just don’t want to talk about it in depth.” I insisted, and they all nodded, Tom’s glare dropping as he returned to his laptop. He only managed a few more minutes, though, before he threw his hands up and made a small noise of frustration.  
“It’s hopeless! I’ve tried every trick I know, and nothing’s working!” He huffed, and I discreetly sighed in relief. I’d seen enough already, I didn’t want to know what else had happened. 

I remembered something then, that Tom had told me years before. I reached over and grabbed the camera, turning it over until I found the slot for the memory card. I pressed the eject button, then inspected the card.  
“There’s the problem.” I told him softly, holding it out for them to see. It looked like it had been burned, and parts of it were so twisted and warped, I was surprised it had played at all. Tom took it from me and inspected it himself, shaking his head.  
“Of course. The memory card should have been the first thing I checked.” He mumbled to himself as he examined every inch of the card, probably trying to find a way to fix it, or at least manipulate it enough to get more footage from it.

It was then that the rest of the band and crew started getting up, all of us looking in concern as Lee staggered out of the bunk room, wheezing as he choked on the same wet cough that had been bothering me. His skin was grey, his eyes bloodshot, and he looked more exhausted than he had when he’d gone to bed, in fact, he looked like he hadn’t slept in weeks. He stood swaying for a few seconds, then turned to look at the four of us sitting there.  
“Didn’t I come out and talk to you guys already?” He asked quietly, and we looked at him in concern as we shook our heads. 

He looked at us in confusion, then shrugged.  
“I’m going back to bed, I feel like I got hit by a lorry. I really need to stop drinking.” He mumbled with a small laugh, then staggered back into the bunk room. We looked at each other and Vegan frowned.  
“He wasn’t drinking last night, was he?” He asked softly, and Jordan and Tom shook there heads.

Suddenly, my head started spinning, and images started forming in my mind, as clear as if it were happening right then and there in front of me.  
 _“Come on, Lee, don’t be a boring little shit!” Matt Barnes teased, trying again to push the bottle of vodka into his hand, but Lee continued to push it away, shaking his head.  
“Nah, mate, I’m not in the mood, honestly.” He insisted, and I laughed with everyone as Matt pouted over-exaggeratedly, flopping onto a couch and cradling the bottle.  
“Fine, I’ll just have to drink it myself, then!” He insisted, taking a swig straight from the bottle and immediately gagging._

I was brought back to the present when I began coughing again, the few wheezing breaths I was able to take feeling like I had knives in my lungs. When I finally stopped coughing, I started gagging instead, bile quickly rising in my throat as I jumped to my feet and rushed over to the sink in the small kitchenette, barely making it as I started violently vomiting. 

When my stomach settled at last, I tried to ignore the pink tinge in the vomit as I washed it away, but I couldn’t ignore the thick blood sticking to my hand. I heard Tom approaching and quickly washed the blood from my hand, knowing he’d worry too much if he saw it.

Thankfully, Tom didn’t notice the last swirl of blood making its way down the drain, but that didn’t stop him worrying and fussing for the rest of the day. He dragged me to my bunk and insisted I get some sleep, even crawling in with me to keep an eye on me as I slept. After an hour and a half of trying, though, we both agreed that I wasn’t going to be falling asleep, despite the fact that I was bone tired.

We ended up watching The Walking Dead on my laptop, Tom leaning against the wall of the bunk while I lay between his legs with my back against his chest, the laptop balanced on my legs. I often felt an odd warm, tingling feeling in my stomach when we were close like this, but… Family is supposed to make you feel like that, right?

Eventually, I started getting restless, and somehow talked Tom into letting me get up and wander around the venue we’d arrived at sometime this morning. As I passed through the bus to go out, everyone I passed pulled the necks of their t-shirts over their faces. I started to get paranoid, lifting my arm slightly to smell myself. I’d showered the night before, I couldn’t stink that bad.

Laughter rang out, and Matt clapped my shoulder, t-shirt still covering his face.  
“Don’t worry mate, you smell fine.” He reassured, still laughing as I frowned.  
“What the fuck are you guys doing, then?” I asked, and they sobered slightly.  
“We figured that since Lee’s sick, and he definitely wasn’t drinking last night, he’s probably caught whatever you have. Judging by the state of both of you, it’s not something we want.” Vegan explained, and I nodded. It made sense.

I wandered around for half an hour or so, trying not to tempt myself by hanging around any of the crew who took a break from unloading our gear to smoke. Breathing in second hand smoke made me feel better for a little while, but in the long run, all it did was make it harder to stay off them.

I was just making my tenth or eleventh round of the car park, when someone grabbed me from behind and started pushing me towards the bus. I started to struggle, but stopped when I felt breath against my ear and a harsh American voice whispered in my ear.  
“Get inside, now. It’s not safe out here. He’s coming. I’ll hold him off, now go!” With that last word, a hard shove had me staggering onto the bottom step of the bus. I spun around just in time to see a figure in a grey hoodie, the hood pulled up to completely cover his face and black gloves hid his hands. He didn’t turn back, just quickly walked to a small alleyway between the venue and the building next to it. Before entering the alley, he stopped, and, almost as though he sensed me watching him, raised his hand and made a ‘shoo’ motion towards me without turning around, urging me onto the bus one last time before he vanished into the alley.

Once he was gone, the full magnitude of what he’d said hit me, and I rushed back onto the bus, crawling back into my bunk and Tom’s embrace, desperately hoping that whoever had helped me was alright.


	6. Chapter 6

The rest of the day passed uneventfully, and as the hours passed without a body being found, I started to relax and let myself believe that whoever had helped me hadn’t gotten hurt.

Just after 11 o’clock that night, we were lounging around in the living room of the bus, coming down from the high of playing a show. It had gone surprisingly well, despite having to stop a few times for Lee or I to break into a coughing fit. 

We were making lazy attempts at conversation when Tom rushed in from the back room, laptop cradled on his arm. He flopped down next to me and pushed it onto my legs.  
“Does this look familiar to you?” He asked, and I groaned as I recognised the blurry night vision. He’d managed to retrieve some of the corrupted footage.  
“I don’t want to see. I’ve seen too much of it already.” I told him quietly, trying to push it back to him, but he held it in place.  
“It’s ok, it’s nothing bad, it’s just… I managed to get a few clear shots of where you were, and I think I recognise it.” He told me, and I sighed, hesitantly nodding.

Once I’d agreed, he settled it onto my legs again and pressed play. I watched hesitantly as I ran through dense forest, the loud crashing of the leaves making me jump. I focused a little more once I realised Tom was telling the truth, there was nothing traumatising on this new footage. As ‘I’ continued running, I caught sight of something through the trees that gave me a sense of déjà vu.  
“Wait, wait, how do I rewind this?” I asked quickly, and Tom leant over me, hitting a few buttons and making it skip back a scene at a time.

Once it was at the right scene, I got him to pause it and leant as close as possible to the screen, squinting to see it more clearly, making Tom stifle a laugh.  
“You do know I can zoom it in, right?” He asked, and I shrugged.  
“It’ll be blurry either way, right?” I asked rhetorically, then I realised what I was seeing.  
“Is that… Is that Endcliffe Park?” I asked slowly, now recognising the play park Tom and I had spent so much time in as kids. The metal lookout tower with the enclosed slide, the three big rocks by the swings we’d been told to stay away from but almost always ended up climbing on. It was definitely Endcliffe.

The others clambered around to see, squinting the same way I had.  
“But… How the fuck did you get to Endcliffe and back?” Nicholls asked slowly, and I shook my head in bewilderment. Tom seemed to have an idea, though.  
“Hey, d’you remember those old stories about Endcliffe?” He asked, and I frowned at him.  
“What old stories? I never heard anything.” I told him, and he laughed.  
“That was why mum wouldn’t let us go there anymore. One story was about how these wannabe Buddhists used to ‘worship the earth’ in the woods and accidentally created this Thoughtform thing called a Tulpa-”

 

“Wait, are you telling me people thought these Buddhists _imagined_ something into existence?” Jordan interrupted with a scoff, and Tom shrugged.  
“I never said I believed it, that’s just what I heard. Anyway, apparently, they accidentally created this Tulpa thing, but because it was unintentional, they didn’t focus properly and it ended up being this twisted, warped thing, and it turned on them and killed them all, people reckon it’s still in the woods, stalking and killing anyone that goes in there.”

There was laughter and scoffing as none of us believed it, then Matt turned to Tom.  
“What about the other ones? You said there were a few.” He reminded, and Tom nodded.  
“There were two others that I heard. The first was about a guy a couple of hundred years ago. Apparently, he was deformed, total Quasimodo kinda thing, so his parents kept him hidden away his whole life. When he was in his twenties, some local goody-goody bible thumper talked her way into the house to snoop around and found him. She told the whole village, and the pitchforks came out. According to the story, they chased him into the forest and killed him, now his ghost wanders the woods looking for revenge. 

There’s been a few people claiming to have seen him over the years, but any time they tried to describe him, they either couldn’t, or they’d go mad. A few people claimed to have photos, but the ‘ghost’ in the photos didn’t have a face. Rumour is, he looked so horrifying, the human brain can’t process or handle the sight, so it blocks it out, even when it’s just a photo.”

“The last one I heard isn’t much different; story goes, the whole area where the park is now used to be forest, and the plant life in there would grow ridiculously fast. Apparently, they used that to their advantage and used to execute criminals by sewing their eyes and mouth shut and stringing them up in the trees, then leave them there for days to get pulled apart. 

There’s a myth that the last time they did it, they went back to where they’d strung the guy up, and he hadn’t been ripped apart, his arms and legs had stretched out with the trees. As they were taking the body down, something came out of the forest and killed most of them. The only one to get out claimed it was the ghost of the stretched guy getting revenge. People reckon he was disturbed when they cleared most of the woods for the park, so he kills anyone he catches in the woods, still trying to get revenge on that one guy who escaped.”

We were silent for a few minutes, mulling over what we’d heard. The whole thing seemed ridiculous, but at the same time, so did the thought of me somehow getting from London to Sheffield in two seconds, crashing around the woods for hours, then appearing back in London within seconds. I was starting to believe that something supernatural could be happening to me, and all of those myths were starting to sound plausible.

It seemed I was the only one that thought that, though. The others all burst out laughing, obviously thinking it was some kind of joke. Once they started to calm down, Vegan seemed to notice neither Tom nor I were laughing.  
“Ok, come on guys, we know you’ve been fucking with us.” He insisted, and I shook my head.  
“We haven’t. Everything weird that’s happened… Has actually happened. We had nothing to do with any of it, and to be honest, I’m starting to get really freaked out. Especially since any one of those ‘myths’ could explain what’s happening.” I argued, Tom nodding next to me.

Most of them had been looking at us like we were crazy, but now they looked like they were starting to get angry.  
“Guys, seriously, stop the shit. Next you’re going to say Lee’s sick because of this joke of yours too…” Nicholls started to say, only mildly annoyed, but his face started to redden with rage at the looks on our faces.  
“No, don’t even try to make light of the fact that our best friend is seriously ill just for some stupid fucking joke! We’ve figured it out now, so stop the shit!” He barked at us, the others nodding in agreement as they visibly got angrier.

Neither of us said anything to break the tense silence. I couldn’t think of any way to convince them we weren’t joking without making things worse, and neither could Tom, apparently. Finally, Matt let out an angry, growling sigh.  
“Fine, if you’d admitted it and apologised to Lee, we would’ve let it go, but if you’re going to insist on carrying on with this bullshit, then don’t get us involved.” He snapped, and with that, the five of them got up and migrated as one into the bunk room. 

I sighed and slumped against Tom, nudging him until he wrapped his arm around my shoulders, pulling me closer and resting his head on mine with a sigh.  
“Looks like we’re on our own now, huh?” He asked softly, and I nodded. The guy in the hoodie had helped me that morning, but whether he was an ally or not, I wasn’t sure.


	7. Chapter 7

The rest of the tour passed more or less uneventfully. The other bands and the crews found out about our supposed prank and reacted the same way my band did. During those few weeks, I spent as much of my time as possible hidden away with Tom, unable to stand seeing my best friends glaring at me with such anger and hatred. Tom eventually talked me into showing my face, holding my head up and ignoring them. He insisted hiding away the way we were just made us look guilty. 

Surprisingly, it was Lee who forgave us first. Both of us were getting worse, health wise, and he made the others realise that I wouldn’t make myself that sick, or fuck with his health that badly just for a stupid prank. Once he’d made the others see sense, they quickly forgave us too, but they still didn’t believe that what was happening was real.

It took Jordan a little while longer to get the news that we’d been forgiven, since he seemed to rarely be around anymore. He would disappear for hours at a time, and when he was there, he’d act weird, constantly looking over his shoulder or jumping up to peer out of the bus windows. I almost started thinking whatever was stalking me had started following him too, but I was sure this illness that was plaguing me had something to do with it, and Jordan was the picture of health, so that scrapped that idea.

Tom and I had continued trying to figure out what was going on. He would study the footage from the night I disappeared over and over again, while I tried to research the stories Tom had told me about Endcliffe. We weren’t having much luck, though. Despite Tom managing to recover all of the corrupted footage, it hadn’t yielded any further information; and it seemed any talking people were doing wasn’t happening online. Eventually, we agreed that there was nothing else we could do while we were so far away, and to give up until the tour was over and we got home.

When we did get home, the first thing we did was go to Endcliffe park and straight into the woods. We wandered around for hours, Tom holding a stack of stills from the tape in an attempt to find exactly where I’d appeared, the route I’d taken and where I was when I’d been grabbed and taken back to London. It took a while, but eventually, we had them numbered and stacked in order, and the map we’d gotten from the park’s café had been marked out with the route, little lines and numbers coming from the main line to correspond with the numbers on the photos. As far as I could see, having this information didn’t really help us, but Tom insisted we needed it, that it might prove useful once we had more information. I just nodded and agreed, still not entirely understanding his reasoning.

We were finally done and heading back out of the car park when Tom froze, grabbing my arm to make me stop. He quickly shushed me before I questioned him and cocked his head to listen. I did the same, and heard it. Leaves rustling nearby, and getting closer. Whatever it was, it was too large and moving too quickly to be an animal. I shook Tom’s hand from my arm and grabbed it with my own, mouthing _‘run’_ to him. He nodded, then silently counted to three.

We sprinted as fast as we could through the woods, but it clearly wasn’t fast enough. It only took a few minutes for him to catch up to us, crashing into Tom and sending him to the ground; the neat, carefully ordered stack of photos leaving his grip and scattering on the ground all around us. Tom wasn’t the target, though, I was. As soon as Tom was out of his way, the figure pounced on me, riding my body to the ground and pinning me there. I recognised the grey hoodie and the black gloves, but apparently, the first time I saw him, I failed to notice his mask. It was all white apart from two thin, drawn on eyebrows, black mesh covering the eyes, and a black painted mouth.

I only had a few seconds to register all of this before his fist connected with my jaw, coming back again and again rapidly as he snarled at me.  
“Are you fucking stupid?! You must be! Why would you come back here?! Do you not remember what happened the last time you were here?!” Finally, Tom managed to pull him off me. He immediately jumped to his feet, looking between the two of us, and although I couldn’t see his face, I was sure he was giving us a look of derision.  
“You’re lucky I found you before he did! He’s here. He’s _always_ here. Don’t ever come back.” He spat, then he was gone, running back through the woods.

As soon as he was gone, Tom came over and hauled me to my feet, brushing me off and inspecting the damage. Once we were sure nothing was broken, we picked up the scattered photos, agreeing to wait until we were safely home to organise them back into the right order.

Once we’d gotten back to my flat, which we’d started sharing, I started reordering the photos while Tom used the map to write down the coordinates of each photo, then retrieved his laptop and meticulously renamed each still with it’s coordinates. 

It was slow going, but we eventually finished, then got comfy with a well earned beer. Before long, we ended up discussing the guy, who Tom had christened ‘Hoodie’.  
“D’you think it’s someone we know? Or just… Some weirdo who’s already caught up in it and doesn’t want you to get tangled up like he is?” Tom pondered, but I shook my head.  
“I don’t think we know him. He’s American for starters-” Tom cut me off with a scoff.  
“It’s easy enough to fake an accent.” He argued in a perfect imitation of ‘Hoodie’s accent.  
“Ok, I’ll give you that, but I think, even if he was putting on an accent, I’d know if it was someone I was already familiar with.” I insisted, and he nodded, accepting my argument.

Just as he opened his mouth to continue the discussion, someone started hammering desperately on the door, making us both jump. Tom stood up and quickly crossed the room, opening the door and allowing Lee to stagger in, looking terrified and haggard.   
“I’m sorry. I should have believed you.” He gasped, immediately doubling over in a coughing fit.

Once we’d gotten him calmed down and settled on the couch with some tea, we managed to coax the story out of him.  
“I was walking home from Vegan’s when I saw him. The guy you kept talking about. At first, I just thought it was one of you starting up the prank again, so I ran over to him and tried to pull the mask off, but… he was real, he didn’t have a face. Once I got that close, I started coughing blood all over the place. 

This… Uh, this guy in a mask appeared and dragged me away, said I should avoid going out, and to start trusting you more. He ran off once the faceless guy vanished, and I didn’t know what else to, so I came here.” He rattled off, barely stopping to take a breath.  
“The masked guy, was he American, wore a grey hoodie and black gloves?” I asked, and he nodded. Maybe this guy was an ally after all.

We were quiet for a while as Lee calmed down a little more and we processed what we’d heard. Finally, Tom turned to Lee.  
“Ok, we’re trying to do some research, figure out what’s going on.” He started, and Lee jumped in before he could continue.  
“I’ll help. Whatever you need me to do, consider it done. I need to know what the fuck is happening, and why.” He insisted, and we both nodded as I sighed in relief. At least we had Lee on our side now, too.


	8. Chapter 8

The next morning, Lee had a stroke of genius. Somehow, neither Tom nor I had thought to check the local library for any records that might give us a hint to which of the stories may be true. We headed straight down there, and asked the librarian for the records for Endcliffe and the surrounding ten miles going back as far as possible. We stupidly assumed that the records would be digitised by then, and didn’t notice the warning signs as the librarian gave us a shocked look before nodding and disappearing. 

We ended up sitting for ten minutes waiting for her to come back. When she did, she was pushing a trolley full of boxes, and six more people came in right behind her with identical trolleys, all so full of boxes, they struggled to keep them from falling off. They lined the trolleys up next to the table we’d chosen, and helped us unload as many boxes as we could onto the table. Once the first trolley was empty, we moved it round to the other side of the table, to put the boxes we’d already searched through in, so we wouldn’t get mixed up and end up looking through the same boxes over and over.

Once the librarians had dispersed, we split the boxes on the table into three sections and set to work. It was slow going, even though we each quickly established methods that worked for us. Tom, ever organised, emptied the box into small, neat piles on the table, quickly working though each pile and depositing it back into the box once he was done with it; Lee took out messy handfuls one at a time, sorting them into piles once he was done reading them; I was nowhere near as neat as them, emptying a box onto the table by tipping it over and scattering them everywhere, throwing each page back into the box haphazardly as I finished it.

We were almost silent as we worked, occasionally grunting in frustration as we got to the end of another box without finding anything, or making small noises of recognition as we thought we found something, only to sigh and shake our heads moments later as we realised it was completely unrelated. Finally, three and a half hours into the search, Tom made a small noise, then made us both jump with a loud ‘ah-ha!’ He dug through the pile in front of him for a few seconds, looking for the pages that followed the one in his hand, then sorted them into the right order before he stared reading out what he’d found.

“It’s an account written by the wife of an eyewitness. _‘The experience of Ambrose Bethell, recorded by his wife, Alice Bethell in the year of our Lord Sixteen hundred and thirty. It began with Mrs. Constance Bradshawe fleeing the Edgcomb family homestead, emitting an ungodly noise. The townspeople gathered, and once calmed, Ms. Constance imparted her tale of horror. Upon entrance to the Edgcomb residence, Ms. Constance was instructed not to enter a certain area of the upper floor. Concerned for her neighbours, Ms. Constance ignored this request and went to the forbidden area. Within was a creature resembling a human, though misshapen and grotesque. Upon hearing Ms. Constance’s scream of fear, Mrs. Elizabeth Edgcomb told of her son, who had been touched by the devil prior to birth. This did nothing to calm the inconsolable Ms. Constance, who fled the residence, despite Ms. Elisabeth’s pleads for silence._

_Upon the completion of Ms. Constance’s tale, the men folk agreed this monster should no longer be allowed to plague our town. With that, the men gathered their weapons and pursued the beast, which fled to the nearby woodland. It is at this point the tale becomes difficult for my husband to continue. From his terrorised gibbering, I have managed to ascertain that within the woodland, the party gained upon the beast and subdued it. Upon the sight of the beast’s features, many men began retching and fainting. A few men managed to contain themselves long enough to slay the beast thoroughly, to ensure it would not return._

_A celebration occurred once the men returned, but it did not stay that way. Within a few days, the men were one by one slaughtered in their beds, their wives reporting a faceless beast as the culprit. Upon the completion of this document, Ambrose and I shall flee the town with our children and live in exile until we are certain this beast shall no longer plague us._ ”

It took a while to read out, Tom having to pause and stutter his way through the strange spellings the woman had used, but he managed. Once he’d read it to us, Tom disappeared to photocopy it while we continued searching. Once he returned, we slipped back into silence for about an hour, until something caught my eye, a document from 1773, the words that caught my attention were ‘sewing’ and ‘stretched by trees’. I read through the whole thing, then caught Lee and Tom’s attention.

“Hey, listen to this. _There are many reports of the abnormal growth of the plant life within Endcliffe Woods, but what many don’t speak of are the execution practices from the area, nor the incident which occurred on 19th of April 1773, which ended these practices. We have only one account of this incident from the sole survivor, Mr. Edward Rutter, though at the time, his account was dismissed as the ramblings of a man plagued by insanity._

_Mr. Rutter’s account states that for many years, the local authorities had used the abnormal speed at which the plants grew to punish criminals, first sewing the eyes and mouth closed, then attaching the arms and legs to adjacent trees. They would then leave the criminal there to be pulled apart by the trees._

_On the afternoon of the 19th of April, the party returned to remove the corpse of an unnamed criminal, only to discover that in this instance, the body had not been torn apart, but the limbs had elongated with the trees. Upon the removal of the body, Mr. Rutter reported that the trees all around began to shake and tremble, as though a herd of animals were stampeding by. This was not the case, as each man was dragged into the trees by an unseen entity and slaughtered. Mr. Rutter was unsure of how he made his escape, but insisted on moving around constantly until the day he died, sure the entity would hunt him down and seek revenge were he to remain in one place._ ”

We agreed this sounded exactly like the story Tom had heard, and again, we photocopied it. Finally, thirty minutes before the library closed, Lee found a newspaper article from the seventies. It briefly told of a group of ‘unfortunate earth worshipers’ that had been attacked and killed by some kind of bear or big cat thought to have escaped from a zoo or private collection. It also mentioned some people who believed the group had been slaughtered by ‘some likely make-believe creature’. We had to work quickly, Tom and I rushing to stack the boxes back on the trolleys while Lee convinced the librarian to plug the photocopier back in for him.

Once we had that done, we trudged out of the library, happy to finally be done. The only downside, though, was that we had accounts of all three stories. It was better than nothing, though.

As we got into Tom’s car, my phone chimed, letting me know I’d been mentioned on Twitter. I opened the app, scanning the screen and feeling my blood boil. I’d been mentioned in a conversation between Nicholls and a fan. The girl had told him that they all knew our Slenderman videos had been a joke, asking why we’d stopped suddenly after only doing a few. I had no problem with that, what bothered me was Nicholls’ reply.   
_‘We stopped making the videos because Oli’s been having some mental health issues. That’s all any of us will say on the matter.’_

We went straight to Nicholls’ flat, after I’d snarled at Tom to turn around. I stormed straight in and grabbed him by the front of his t-shirt.  
“What the hell are you playing at?! Telling the whole of fucking Twitter I’m crazy?!” I screamed at him, and he scoffed.  
“How are you not?! You think a faceless ghost is staking you! How is that in any way sane?!” He spat back, and I felt myself get even angrier. 

Before I got the chance to tell him exactly what I thought of him, my chest rattled, and I started wheezing and coughing. It usually lasted a few minutes before I’d calm down and start gasping for air greedily, but this time, it got worse, until blood was pouring from my mouth and splattering onto the floor. Finally, the coughing calmed down, but I started retching instead. The first time this had happened, there was only a slight pink tinge of blood in the vomit, but this time, there wasn’t even any vomit, it was entirely blood pouring from my mouth, until my head started spinning and I felt myself slip to the floor, arms that I assumed were Tom’s wrapping around my torso before I could hit the ground and hurt myself. I felt his shake me and call my name, but everything was going dark and I couldn’t find the energy to reassure him before I lost consciousness.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one's in third person.

The room erupted into chaos as Tom hitched his brother’s limp form further into his arms, then turned to Lee.  
“Can you drive for me?” He asked quickly, and at Lee’s nod, threw his keys to him and rushed out the door. He slid Oli into the back seat of the car and crawled in with him, cradling Oli’s head in his lap as he tried to ignore the blood still coming from his mouth and nose in steady streams.

Tom spent the whole drive to the hospital gently wiping the blood from Oli’s face and whispering to his brother, begging him to be alright, to just keep breathing. As Lee drove, he tried to ignore the boys in the back seat and focus on the road. Each rasping breath Oli took and each wavering plead Tom whispered to the air was breaking his heart. 

When they finally got there, the car had barely stopped before Tom jumped from the back seat, pulled his brother into his arms and ran into the A&E, almost shouting at the nurse on reception to help. A passing doctor took one look at Oli’s limp form and the blood still dripping from him, and grabbed him from Tom’s arms, barking orders at nearby nurses as he rushed away with him.

The speed at which Oli was rushed away left Tom standing dumbfounded, leaving Lee to gently lead him over to the waiting room and into a chair. They sat in silence for a few minutes, until one of the nurses came over and sat with them, asking for Oli’s information and what had happened. Tom managed to give him Oli’s information without difficulty, but when he started trying to explain, he got things wrong and mixed up what happened when, until Lee took pity on him, squeezing his arm to silence him, then quietly and calmly explained the whole thing, from the slight cough at the beginning, the coughing and vomiting blood he’d thought he’d hidden from them, to the incident that brought them to the hospital.

Finally, the nurse left them alone, and Tom started pacing the empty waiting room, running over steadily worsening ‘what-ifs’ in his mind. Lee tried to get him to calm down, or at least sit down, but Tom refused to listen, only stopping his pacing twice. Once when Vegan, Jordan and Nicholls appeared, Jordan handing cardboard cups of tea to Tom and Lee while Nicholls stammered out an apology. Tom only gave a snarking reply about who he should be apologising to and continued pacing. 

The second time was when a nurse appeared in the doorway of the waiting room, looked around for a few seconds, shook her head and left. Tom froze when she appeared, watching her the whole time, then dropped his head with a sigh tinged with both relief and impatience when she left. He immediately started pacing again, ignoring the others as they tried to convince him to sit down and try to calm down a little.

Finally, just after seven in the morning, the doctor who’d taken Oli from Tom’s arms returned to the waiting room looking exhausted. The five of them froze, staring at him expectantly as he approached Tom.  
“I’m sorry, but we can’t find any problem with your brother. We’ve run every test available on him, and physically, he’s perfectly healthy. We know he’s clearly not, it took us three hours to stop the bleeding, we just don’t know what caused it. We’ve stabilised him, and he’s receiving a blood transfusion now. Once the transfusion is complete and he regains consciousness, you should be able to take him home.” The doctor told him, and Tom sagged, whether from relief or disappointment at the lack of diagnosis, even he didn’t know.

Once the others left, hugging Tom and extracting promises of regular updates from him, the doctor led Tom to Oli’s room, checking his vitals as Tom got settled in a chair by the bed, cradling one of Oli’s hands between both of his own. His eyes scanned Oli’s still form; the matted, sweaty hair; the rusty flecks of blood on his face that they hadn’t quite gotten clean; the dark, purple bags under his eyes; the suddenly much more prominent bones on his cheeks, collarbones and even his wrists; the almost grey, waxy look of his skin. Oli was not looking good, and Tom started wondering guiltily how long his brother had looked that awful without him noticing.

Once the doctor was gone, and the room was silent, minus the beeps and whirs of the monitor Oli was connected to, Tom finally gained the courage to say the words that been driving him mad for over a year.  
“Hey, Liv. I need to tell you something, but I think I’m only telling you now because I know you can’t hear me. I love you, not the way I’m supposed to, though. I’m not quite sure when it happened. I think around the time you and SJ split up. I just remember being so pissed off at her, and out of nowhere, I had the thought ‘I would be able to treat him so much better than she does’. And when it hit me, I was so confused. You’re my big brother, I shouldn’t feel like this. But… No matter how much I tried to tell myself that, I still got _so_ jealous of Amanda and Hannah, and anyone you even glanced at. I guess… After Hannah, I just stopped trying to convince myself. I came to terms with it. I’m in love with my big brother, and if that makes me a sick bastard, then so be it.”

He finished his monologue with a small, sad sigh.  
“I guess you’ll never know that, though. It seems I only have the guts to tell you this when you’re unconscious. Maybe one day I’ll tell you for real.” He mumbled, brushing the lank, sweaty hair from Oli’s eyes and pressing a kiss to his forehead, before settling back into his seat to wait.

Little did he know, Oli had woken up when the doctor left, and he’d heard everything. He lay there with his eyes closed, lying as still as possible so as not to alert Tom that he was awake. He’d listened to what he’d had to say, and now his mind was reeling as he tried to make sense of what he’d heard. Tom was in love with him? But the strangest thing of all was that Oli didn’t think he was a sick bastard. He didn’t feel any repulsion at all, couldn’t bring himself to feel his brother was sick or wrong in any way, which he just couldn’t wrap his head around.

He decided that he wasn’t going to understand any of this any time soon right around the time his back started to ache from the uncomfortable bed. He pretended to wake up, acting as normal as possible and hoping that Tom would pass off any strange behaviour as him still not feeling 100%.

Once the doctor had given Oli one last check up and cleared him to leave, they’d gone home, Tom treating him like he was made of spun glass. He insisted on assisting Oli’s every step with a gentle grip on his arm, almost lifting him in and out of the car, and settling him on the couch with a blanket as soon as they got home, despite Oli’s constant reassurances that he was fine, he just felt a little weak.

Finally, Oli gave up trying and allowed Tom to fuss and baby him. He decided that focusing on figuring out how he felt about Tom’s confession was more important. He didn’t get very far, though. It exhausted him so much that within minutes, he was sleeping peacefully, never seeing the indulgent, loving look Tom gave him from the kitchen doorway as he snored softly.


	10. Chapter 10

I spent the next few days curled up on the couch, letting Tom take care of me as I mulled over what he’d told me, trying to figure out how I felt about it and what that meant. I found myself noticing little things, too. 

Suddenly, the little gestures meant something completely different; the way he’d stroke the back of my head as he passed, the little kisses he pressed to my forehead or hair at random intervals, the way he played with my hair absently as he watched TV or worked on something on his laptop, the hugs just for the point of it, the way he’d sit as close to me as possible despite having plenty of room. It all shone with a different light.

I used to think he was just an affectionate guy, but I was starting to see that while that may be true, he had a hell of a lot more affection for me than he did for most.

We’d been holed up for three days, and I was finally starting to feel like myself again when it happened. We were curled up in my couch nest when the door burst open and Lee almost fell through it. We both jumped up and helped him to the couch.

We got him calmed down relatively quickly, and he told us what had happened. How he’d been walking to the shop and stupidly took a shortcut through Endcliffe park. He had almost made it to the gate when he saw someone in the distance, someone wearing a suit. He’d immediately broken into what was beginning to become the tell-tale coughing fit, unable to run when the figure started getting closer. His voice got quiet as he told us that in that moment, he’d honestly believed he was about to die.

But then, our masked friend had appeared from nowhere, pulling Lee’s arm over his shoulders and dragging him out of the park, swearing under his breath as Lee struggled to run with him but ended up hindering them both and slowing them down.

Finally, just one street over from ours, ‘Hoodie’ had finally slowed down and allowed Lee to walk for himself, leaving him with a harsh warning to never return to Endcliffe again, before walking quickly in the opposite direction. Lee had then ran straight to ours, which ‘Hoodie’ had obviously wanted him to do.

Once all the talking was over and done with, and Lee had calmed down completely, we all agreed it wasn’t safe for him to walk home alone that night, and that he would stay with us. He stood up to help me dig out the spare quilt, when something clattered to the floor and slid away under the table.

Tom was the one to fish it out, frowning in confusion as he showed us the camera tape, the words _‘watch me’_ scrawled across the clear plastic case in black permanent marker.

It only took a few minutes for Tom to retrieve everything he needed, the tape slotted into his camera, which he hooked up to his laptop, which he wirelessly connected to the flat screen on the wall.

The camera whined as it spun the tape, then an image flickered onto both screens. It was me, just before we had the stupid idea to make those videos. It looked like whoever was filming was following me from a distance. I sure as hell hadn’t known I was being watched or filmed. 

The camera followed me for about fifteen minutes as I did mundane things, dropped off some paperwork at the Drop Dead offices and payed my rent. I was just heading into Asda when the camera started hissing and fizzing. The screen moved to the left slightly, and there was the figure I was reluctant to identify as ‘Slender Man’. He was standing next to the doors, unnoticed by me at the time, his head tilted to the side as if he were watching me. I disappeared inside Asda, the camera fizzed once more, and the figure was gone.

The screen was dark for a few seconds, then I was there again, this time several months ago, while we were on tour in America. The camera followed not just me, but the whole band as we headed from a signing to sound check. The camera mostly focused on the street behind us, though, as the figure followed us all the way from the shop we’d done the signing in right back to the venue.

The rest of the tape followed the same vein, going back to just over two years, candid shots of me doing just about everything, never realising that the figure was almost always there, watching from a distance.

The screen went dark, and stayed that way for almost a minute. Tom leaned forward to turn his camera off, but just as his finger found the button, the screen lit up again, revealing more footage. This wasn’t following me, though, it was of a gloved hand holding a framed photograph of me when I was a baby that had sat on the mantle in my parents’ living room for as long as I could remember. 

I started to wonder the significance of this, then the camera started to zoom in until you couldn’t see me any more. What you could see, though, was a pale figure in a dark suit standing sentry through the doorway.

I started to feel sick as it went dark again, the screen lighting up again almost immediately, another shot of a photograph. This time I was almost three, sitting in my dad’s lap in a hospital chair as he helped me cradle a newborn Tom. Again, the camera began to zoom in, focusing on the window behind us and the figure standing out in the car park.

This continued for half an hour, photo after photo of me growing up, birthday parties, my first day of primary school, sports days, school plays, playing in the garden or at the park with Tom, my first day of high school, the photos mum insisted on taking before I left for my high school’s leaver’s dance, my last day of high school, the first proper show Bring Me The Horizon played, the first time we went on a real tour, the first time we sold out a headline show, and the day we opened the Drop Dead offices. 

Even photos Tom had taken, blurry and off centre at first as it started out as just a silly little hobby, slowly getting clearer and more spectacular as the bug really took hold and he turned into the fantastic photographer he grew up to be. Random shots of me giving him a stupid grin or pulling a weird face as we passed in the corridor at school, pretending to ignore him while making sure he didn’t feel left out as I slouched around the house with the band or whichever girlfriend I happened to be with at the time. Every single photo had that fucking figure in the background, watching silently.

The last one broke my heart more than a little. It was from Tom’s last birthday, his 23rd, the same photo he used as his laptop background. Just over his shoulder, the figure could just be seen, watching us both, showing a surprising amount of interest for someone with no face. 

The rest of the photos had made me feel sick, but seeing that, knowing that that thing had tainted what had been an amazing night, what Tom had slurred against my shoulder was the best night of his life, made me want to cry.

It wasn’t until the tape ended and Tom and Lee both gave me dumbfounded looks, that the meaning behind what I’d seen finally hit me. He’d been following me, watching from afar my whole life, probably since the day I was born. I started to feel numb as the world blurred and faded away and I slipped further and further into my mind, where it was safe and warm and there was no fucking faceless creeps following me. I heard Tom calling my name, getting more and more worried each time I didn’t respond, the hand on my elbow shaking me harder and harder, but I had sunk too far into my ‘safe place’ to really register what was going on.

I heard the tears in his voice, and felt a tiny pang in my chest, but it only served to push me further into myself, until the world around me faded entirely, Tom’s presence wasn’t there any more, and for the first time in a long time, I felt truly safe.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one's in Tom's Point Of View.

I felt the tears start to escape as the light faded from Oli’s eyes, a little spark giving me hope before it quickly vanished, taking the last little bit of light with it. I looked Oli over, glad to notice he was still breathing, oddly enough, they were deep, calm, even breaths, his body totally relaxed. 

He was too relaxed, though, sitting slumped but perfectly still, as though he was on autopilot. It seemed one of his favourite phrases could be applied to him. ‘The lights are on, but nobody’s home’. That was exactly what it seemed like. His eyes were open and he was still breathing steadily, but his eyes were empty and dull. 

I decided to test him, raising his arm and swinging it around, then gently pulling him to his feet and leading him by the hand around the living room. He followed obediently, feet shuffling and eyes showing no signs of recognition. 

When we made it back to the armchair he’d been sitting in, he still showed no signs of recollection, and Lee was looking at me with as much worry as I was feeling. We looked at each other, and I could see the same decision forming in his eyes as the one I’d just made.  
“D’you want me to drive again?” He asked quietly, and I nodded appreciatively as I pushed gently on Oli’s shoulders to make him sit down, then put on his trainers and a hoodie for him.

Once that was done, I tugged him back to his feet, passing my keys to Lee as I laced my fingers with Oli’s giving them a squeeze in the hope of seeing _something_ in his eyes. When nothing came, I sighed sadly and gently tugged his hand, hating the sound of his feet shuffling against the floor as he followed me meekly out of the door Lee was holding open for us.

We ended up with the same doctor who’d treated Liv just a few days before. He looked surprised to see us again when he called Oli’s name, but it quickly turned to concern as he watched me almost lift Oli to his feet and lead him like a lost puppy to the cubical the doctor indicated.

The doctor worked quickly, his hands gentle as he ran a few tests to try to get a reaction from Liv, murmuring softly to him the whole time, most likely talking nonsense or explaining what he was doing, but nothing seemed to get through to him, and the doctor backed off with a sigh.  
“Has anything happened that may cause emotional trauma?” He asked softly, and I bit my lip. If I told him the truth, he’d chuck all three of us in the mental ward.

Finally, I decided on a half truth.  
“Someone’s been stalking him, he went like this just after he found out that the guy’s been stalking him for a lot longer than we realised.” I told him hesitantly, and he nodded, frowning in concern but accepting the story without argument.  
“Ok, what’s happening is that Oliver has slipped into a state of disassociation.” He told me, then chuckled softly at the bewildered look I gave him.

“Basically, he’s retreated within himself, gone to his ‘happy place’, if you will. The trauma has effected him so badly, he felt he could no longer deal with it, so he closed himself off within his mind, where he feels safe and won’t have to confront the situation or his emotions regarding the subject.” He explained gently, I nodded, quiet as I took in the information.

“What can we do?” I asked finally, desperate to have my big brother back.  
“There’s nothing much we can do. There’s a chance we could shock him out of it somehow, but we would also run the risk of driving him further into himself. Really, all we can do is take care of him and wait for him to come out on his own.” He explained, and I sighed.

“Can I do that at home, or will he need to stay here?” I asked quietly, and he gave me a sympathetic look.  
“You could do it at home, but you would have to do _everything_ for him. Feed him, bathe him, dress him, help him go to the bathroom. Everything.” He emphasised, and I nodded.  
“I understand, and I’ll do it. If he needs me to take care of him, I will, no matter how awkward or embarrassing, no matter how long it takes for him to get better.” I insisted, and he smiled warmly.  
“Then you can take him home. If only we were all blessed with such dedicated siblings.” He mused, pretending he didn’t see my blush as he helped me raise Oli to his feet and steady him.

The next few days were difficult. I had to spoon feed Oli, tipping his head back and stroking his throat after every mouthful to make him swallow. I learned the hard way that solid foods were not a good idea, so I ended up spending far too long before each meal blending food for him, trying my hardest to make sure he didn’t eat the same food two days running. He may not have had any idea what was going on, but he still deserved some variety. 

Bathing and dressing him wasn’t difficult, he just sat there and let me do what needed to be done, though it did make lifting him in and out of the bath slightly difficult. I realised sometime during those few days that you really don’t fully appreciate how much you love someone until you’ve had to help them go to the toilet. I realised early on that Oli’s ridiculously strong bladder control had stayed with him, so I had to push down on his stomach almost hard enough to bruise to force him to let go. I’m not even going to think about what else I had to help him with in that respect, never mind bring it up here.

One thing I hadn’t realised was that he wouldn’t just fall asleep like he normally would. I had to lie in the bed with him for quite a while that first night, talking softly to him, mostly about the stupid stuff we did when we were younger, or just my thoughts on whatever topic happened to come to mind, stroking his hair or gently running my hand along his side until he slowly drifted off. Fortunately, on the second night, I discovered by accident that pressing my fingertips firmly against his ribs and rubbing them sent him to sleep almost immediately, so the following nights passed much easier.

As we entered our seventh day of this, I decided that I couldn’t take seeing him like this anymore. I’d just gotten him out of the bath, and was just finishing getting him dressed when I unconsciously made the decision. He was sitting where I’d put him on the edge of his bed, staring blankly at the floor as I finished pulling his t-shirt on and made sure it was sitting right. Without really thinking about it, I reached out, cupped his face with my hands, tilted it up so he was looking at me, and I kissed him. It wasn’t much, little more than a peck. It did the job though. 

As I pulled away, scanning his face critically for any sign of life, a small light appeared in his eyes, slowly growing until the bright, happy life I was used to had returned.  
“Hey, Liv.” I murmured hesitantly, scared of driving him back into himself. He gave me a soft smile, though, looking around us in confusion.  
“Hey. Um, wasn’t-wasn’t it night a minute ago? And we were in the living room with Lee, weren’t we?” He asked softly, his voice hoarse and scratchy from disuse.

I gently explained everything to him, what the doctor had said, how long it had been, then hesitantly, timidly explained how I’d pulled him out of it. Once I was done, my eyes dropped to the floor as I gnawed on my bottom lip, too scared to see his reaction. 

I jumped as his fingers gently gripped my chin, nudging it up until I was looking into soft, kind eyes.  
“It’s alright. I already knew. I was awake when you told me at the hospital. I just… Didn’t know how I felt about it. I was about to tell you when Lee came in last night, or last week, or whenever.” He started getting a little confused about the times, not noticing my wide eyes. 

My mouth had gone dry, my heart racing. He’d heard. He wasn’t supposed to hear. I couldn’t help but get my hopes up, though.  
“Tell me what?” I asked, my voice raspy with fear. He looked up at me with a beatific smile, slowly got to his feet, then pulled me close as he kissed me slowly.  
“I think that says more than I ever could.” He whispered as he pulled away, and I nodded as I chewed my lip again.

My heart dropped into my stomach as he frowned at me, but thankfully, all he did was reach up and tug my lip out of my mouth.  
“Stop that. I tasted blood, you’re hurting yourself. Don’t.” He chastised quietly, and without thinking, I immediately started chewing again, making him sigh in frustration. He opened his mouth, most likely to scold me again, but then he broke into a smirk as his eyes sparkled mischievously. That look had never bode well for me as a child, so the feeling of dread that filled my gut was instinctive.

I gulped and almost curled in on myself as he edged closer. I tried to back away, but he gently gripped my upper arms and pulled me against him. He dipped his head to cover the few inches of height between us, then pressed his lips to mine, pulling my bottom one from between my teeth with his own.

Once he was satisfied I wouldn’t started gnawing again, he pulled back, that mischievous glint still in his eyes.  
“I guess I’m going to have to do that every time until you stop.” He murmured, and I smiled.  
“Does that mean this is permanent then? Us, I mean.” I asked hesitantly, making him grin as he pulled me against his chest and rested his head against mine.  
“Of course it does. I was stupid for not seeing it before, and I’m never letting you go, now that I have you.”

Once it was official, we spent the rest of the morning curled up on the couch, making fun of whatever horrific daytime TV was on and exchanging lazy kisses every now and again.

The atmosphere was ruined just before noon, when we were playfully arguing over what to do for lunch. Someone started hammering on the door, then gave up and threw it open just as Liv was getting up to answer it. Nicholls was standing in the doorway, breathing harshly, his eyes wild and panicked, blood that looked like his own smeared across his front.  
“I-I need help. I saw him.”


	12. Chapter 12

Once we got Matt calmed down, we got Lee over and started trying to make plans. I don’t know why we thought we’d come up with anything, Matt didn’t have any new insights and neither Lee nor Tom had managed to unearth anything new in the week I’d been ‘away’. Finally, after we spent the whole day brainstorming and had no new ideas to show for it, we decided to sleep on it and regroup in the morning. Matt and Lee left, and Tom and I crawled into my bed, where I immediately curled around his back like it was the most natural thing in the world.

I jerked awake as a loud noise rang out behind me. I reached out for Tom and felt something hard beneath me scratch my skin. I leaned up on my elbow and looked around. I was no longer in my bed with Tom, or even in my room. There were trees all around me, and I started to realise what was happening with a sinking feeling. I was in Endcliffe park.

As I clambered to my feet, I realised my left hand was wrapped around something. I squinted as I brought it up to my face. My head recoiled from my hand as the smell hit me. It was a knife, covered in a foul smelling slime. I took a step forward and swore as a sharp pain shot through my foot. I looked down and realised I was barefoot, and still wearing the thin vest and baggy shorts I’d gone to bed in. 

At that point, I decided not to play whatever game I’d been dragged into this time; and, as Jordan would put it, ‘noped the fuck out’. I glanced around quickly in an attempt to get my bearings. I very quickly realised that it was too dark and everything looked the same. I picked a direction at random and started walking as quickly as I could, considering the twigs and stones stabbing at my bare feet, figuring that the woods weren’t that big, and no matter which direction I went in, I’d get out of them eventually.

I walked at a steady pace for a while, encouraged by the fact that the trees seemed to be thinning out, letting more moonlight filter through to the path. I was jolted from my thoughts by a rustling noise behind me. I followed my first instinct and sped up, first walking quickly, then jogging, until I was sprinting flat out. I ran for quite a while, until the rustling behind me stopped, and I slowed to a stop, doubling over my knees as I caught my breath. 

I straightened up and started to walk again, when the rustling came back, only this time, it was all around me. I decided then that I was done being scared, and started screaming.  
“Come on, then! Is that the best you’ve got?! I’m right here if you want me, you fucking coward!” I roared, and the rustling stopped abruptly.

It was silent for a few seconds, and I started to think I’d won this round. That is, until a now familiar figure appeared a few feet away from me, staring at me intently.   
“What do you want from me?! Just tell me what the fuck you want, and I’ll do it!” I snarled at him, but he did nothing but tilt his head to one side, still watching me.

It was then that I remembered the knife in my hand. I was so angry, frustrated, sick of being scared and just sick of being _sick_ , that I didn’t even think about it as I raised the knife, let out a scream of rage and ran at him. I don’t know what I expected to happen, but it certainly wasn’t what did happen.

He stood there as I ran towards him, not moving to defend himself or return attack. When I reached him, I rammed the knife into his chest, and discovered the source of the foul brown slime that had already been on the knife. Before I had a chance to do anything else, I felt long, thin, inhumanly strong arms wrap around me, and everything went black.


	13. Chapter 13

When the darkness finally faded, and the arms around me disappeared, I scrabbled away from where I’d last felt them, resulting in falling gracelessly from the bed I hadn’t realised I was lying in. Once I calmed down slightly, I looked around me and realised I was back in my bedroom, and that it was my own bed I’d fallen from. 

I went to get up, but searing pain in my feet had me collapsing back to the floor with a crash and a yelp. Everything was silent for a few seconds, then the sound of chairs scraping and rushed footsteps came from the kitchen. The door flew open, and suddenly, I was being clamoured as Tom, Lee, Nicholls and Jordan all tried to pull me to my feet and look me over and demanded to know where I’d been.

Finally, I managed to get it across that my feet were the problem, and before I could process it, Tom had swung me up into his arms and carried me into the living room, depositing me gently onto the couch as Lee got the first aid kit from the bathroom. Tom sat beside me and gently moved my feet into his lap so he could inspect them, but he ended up staring at me unwaveringly instead. I started to get a little unnerved and nudged his hand with my foot.  
“Why the fuck are you staring at me like that, you freak?” I asked jokingly, making him frown.  
“You disappeared for three fucking weeks, and you think me being happy to see you is weird?” He asked incredulously as Lee handed him the first aid kit.

I tried to process this information as Tom took out the antiseptic wipes and started cleaning the blood and dirt from my feet.  
“I don’t remember any of it.” I mumbled softly, causing them all to freeze and stare at me. Nicholls asked me to repeat myself, and I explained, telling them what I did remember and that I had no idea I’d been gone so long.

They told me then what had happened after I’d vanished. How Tom hadn’t even noticed me leaving the bed, and had no idea I was even gone until he’d gotten up the next morning; how they’d tried phoning my mobile, only to find it was on the bedside table where I’d left it; then Jordan dropped a bomb.  
“We looked everywhere for you. I even looked in Endcliffe park, despite the fact I told you never to go in there ever again.” He commented, and Tom and I froze, looking at each other with wide eyes before we turned to him.  
“Why the fuck are you staring at me like that?” Jordan asked nervously as he looked between the two of us.  
“It was the masked guy in the hoodie that told us not to go to Endcliffe anymore.” I commented softly, and Jordan’s eyes went wide.  
“Fuck.” He mumbled, confirming what I was starting to think. Jordan was ‘Hoodie’.

We were quiet for a few minutes after the revelation, until Tom thought of something.  
“How did you know we needed help? Everyone else thought we were playing some stupid joke.” He asked, and Jordan sighed.  
“Just remember that I’m not a total creep, alright?” He started, and once he got confirmation from the four of us, he continued.  
“I knew about all of this for a while before any of you did; before you even thought of making those joke videos. I first noticed something wasn’t right about three years ago, I passed Oli in the park, he was walking Oskar, I think. A few minutes later, I noticed a weird guy lurking about, and after watching him for a while, I realised he was following Oli. I went to go warn him, but once I got close enough, I realised what made him seem so weird. The guy didn’t have a fucking face. I started following Oli after that as well, only I was making sure he was alright, that this weird faceless guy wasn’t hurting him or anything. For the record, me joining the band was a complete coincidence. I didn’t realise it was you until after I’d already agreed. Admittedly, it made keeping an eye on you a hell of a lot easier.” He paused for a minute, ordering his thoughts as we absorbed what he’d told us so far.

Just as Jordan went to start talking again, something occurred to Nicholls.  
“So if you’ve been around this guy so much, how come you’re not sick the way Liv and Lee are?” He asked, and Jordan smiled grimly.  
“Thankfully, I seem to have some level of immunity to The Sickness. I’ve had to get a hell of a lot closer to the fucker than you guys have, quite a few times, and I’ve never shown any signs of it.” He explained, and we nodded.

He was quiet again for a minute, then glanced at me unsurely, and I smiled at him comfortingly.  
“It’s alright, I don’t think you’re a creep. How could I, with how many times you’ve probably saved my life in the last three years?” I reassured him, and he smiled.  
“Yeah, I lost count of the amount of times I stopped him going after you. I think the story you found about them using the trees to kill convicts is the right one. Why he’s gunning for you, specifically, I can’t figure out. He never went near Tom, or any of the others, until we started doing those stupid videos. I think he doesn’t even want them, he seems to be trying to use them to draw you out. Either way, you seem to be his main focus, and for the life of me, I can’t figure out why.” He explained, and I shivered, I had started to think that myself, but having it confirmed unnerved me.

Jordan noticed my uneasiness, and flashed me a smile.  
“Don’t worry, I’ve been doing almost endless research for almost three years, and I think I finally figured out how to destroy him, or at least shift his focus away from you.” He told us, and I nodded, noticing the others doing the same.  
“We’ll give you any help you need. This needs to end, now.” I insisted, and Jordan grinned.  
“Let’s get to work, then.”


	14. Chapter 14

As soon as Tom was finished cleaning and bandaging my feet, I stood up and tested them. He’d padded them with gauze, so standing didn’t hurt, and I insisted that we put Jordan’s plan into action immediately. I had been deadly serious; this had to end, now. Jordan stopped me, though, insisting that we had to wait until it was dark to actually do anything, except research. 

He wouldn’t tell us what his plan was yet, only that we needed to find the records of Edward Rutter, the only survivor of the original incident. He insisted that the account of the incident wasn’t enough, we needed to know _everything_ about this guy. 

We spent the next few hours phoning around, to churches, police stations, records offices, regional headquarters for just about every profession we could think of, and the local newspapers, and by lunchtime, we had a list of places that were willing to let us search their records for any sign of Edward Rutter. We stopped for lunch, then split the list into three, Tom and I taking one part, Nicholls and Lee taking another, and Jordan taking the rest, and split up. As we left, Jordan stressed that we needed absolutely everything, including when he died, how he died and where he was buried, which I found strange, but didn’t argue. He was the only one that knew what they were doing, after all. If he thought we needed it, then we needed it. 

Our list included a few of everything; three churches, two police stations, a records office, the South Yorkshire headquarters of a large dental company, a large bakery company and the records archive of a now dissolved steel manufacturer that had been established in the early 1700’s, and the archives of two newspapers, The Star and Sheffield Telegraph.

As soon as we’d gotten into my car, Tom pulled out a map from seemingly nowhere, and started scanning it, making a small ‘hmm’ noise to himself every now and again as he circled several things. Finally, he nodded to himself, then looked over to me.  
“Sheffield Cathedral is the closest, then the police station, so we’ll do those two first, then figure out the rest after that.” He told me, and I nodded. I got him to remind me of the address of the Cathedral, then we left.

Both police stations and all three churches yielded no results, apparently, Edward Rutter was an atheist who’d stayed out of trouble. We found nothing at the archives for The Star, nor the dental and bakery headquarters. The records office and the archives of the Sheffield Telegraph and the steel manufacturer gave us more information. Edward Rutter had been born in January 1747; had no dental records that still existed, at least; he’d worked with the steel manufacturer from the age of 13 until the incident at Endcliffe; he married Elisabeth ‘Bessie’ Kingston in April 1768, had three daughters with her, Gertrude, Henrietta and Ava; had been the topic of several articles about the events at Endcliffe for about 17 years afterwards despite seeming to have dropped off the face of the earth after it happened; then died in December 1786 at the age of 39 in Cornwall and was brought back to Sheffield to be buried in the cemetery at Sheffield Cathedral. 

We relayed this information to the others as we got back into the car, Tom phoning Lee as I phoned Jordan, who seemed excited by the news and told me to meet him at the Cathedral, and to get Tom to pass the message onto Lee.

Once that was done, we headed back to where we’d started. It was just after nine at night, so it had been dark for a while and Jordan seemed quite happy about that as we approached him at the cathedral gates as Lee and Nicholls approached from the opposite direction. I was surprised to see shovels and battery operated lanterns at his feet, which Nicholls realised the significance of first.  
“Oh, fuck no, we are not grave robbing. No way in hell.” He hissed, and I looked at Jordan in surprise as his face hardened.  
“Well, it’s that, or Liv dies. Your choice.” He spat, making Nicholls recoil.  
“There’s really no other choice?” Tom asked softly, and Jordan shook his head as his expression softened.  
“I don’t know why this guy latched onto Liv, but the only way I can think of to get him off his case is to give him the guy he wanted in the first place, the only one that survived after he was executed. I reckon, if he has him, he’ll have no reason to go after Liv anymore.” Jordan reasoned, and Tom nodded, then bent and picked up a shovel.  
“Let’s go, then.” He mumbled, turning and heading over to the gates as the rest of us followed suit.

It turned out that digging up a body was a lot more difficult than I’d expected. Tom, Jordan, Nicholls and I took turns digging as Lee kept watch. What we were doing was illegal, and if we were caught, our reason would only wind us up in a loony bin. Despite it being October, and really damn cold, within half an hour, all four of us had pulled off our jackets, jumpers and t-shirts, and were still sweating profusely.

I was the one digging when we finally got down to the coffin, the wood splintering loudly as the shovel hit it with force. As I used the shovel to lift the coffin lid completely, Jordan sat down at the side of the grave with a wooden box in his hands. I quickly but gently transferred the bones with as much respect as I could.  
“Sorry, mate. It’s either you or me, and you’re already dead, so…” I mumbled as I placed the skull into the box last, then gently closed the lid.

It was half eleven by the time we got to Endcliffe, and thankfully we didn’t have to go too far into the woods. We only walked for a few minutes before we got to a small clearing, which Jordan announced would do nicely, then flumped down onto a tree stump. I looked at the others and shrugged, then sat down on a fallen tree. Tom sat next to me and grabbed my hand, squeezing almost tight enough to hurt. I didn’t blame him for being scared, none of us wanted to think about what might happen if the bones weren’t what this guy wanted.

We sat for almost two hours before the familiar rustling started. We all jumped to our feet and huddled together in the centre of the clearing. As soon as he appeared from between the trees, I grabbed the box from Jordan and held it out to him.  
“Here. This is what you want, right? The only one that survived after they executed you. His bones are in here.” I told him as I slowly crept forward, ignoring the others hissing at me not to get too close.

I set them down on the ground a few feet in front of him, then backed up quickly. I got back to the others, and Tom grabbed me, holding me to him tightly as we watched to see what would happen. I frowned as an odd, white light came from the box, slowly getting brighter, until my eyes watered and I couldn’t look anymore. 

When it seemed to fade, I slowly opened my eyes, and gasped sharply. Where the box had been stood a man, dressed oddly and looking terrified. I had no doubt that I was looking at Edward Rutter.

The faceless figure looked at Edward consideringly, and if he’d had a face, he’d have been grinning manically. Without hesitation, he lunged forward and grabbed Edward tightly, and they both vanished. I felt tension I hadn’t realised I’d been carrying melt away, and I soon realised the rattling in my chest, the nausea and the constant bone deep exhaustion I’d gotten used to had gone with it. I looked to Lee with a raised eyebrow, and he nodded slowly. His symptoms had vanished, too.

Once we were sure everyone was alright, and that he wasn’t coming back, we quickly walked back out of the woods, not daring to say what we were all thinking, for fear of jinxing it.

It was finally over.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More of an epilogue than an actual chapter.

Three years passed quietly and relatively uneventfully. There was absolutely no sign of anyone without a face, and neither Lee nor myself saw another sign of The Sickness. The biggest development was an unexpected and controversial move from the government. About seven months after we got rid of ‘Faceless’, the government announced they’d made changes to the incest laws. Now the law stated that ‘incest that can not produce the natural offspring of both parties’ is perfectly legal, meaning that anyone in an incestuous relationship where both parties were over the age of 16, consenting, and completely unable to have a baby; were well within their rights to do so. Obviously with heterosexual relationships, they had to prove that one or both of them were sterile or risk prosecution, but homosexual couples, like Tom and me, were free to do whatever we pleased.

Obviously, we took full advantage of that, telling anyone and everyone that would listen, ecstatic that we didn’t have to hide, and rubbed it in the faces of anyone who disagreed with the new law, basically by acting as couple-y as possible in public and having absolutely no qualms about people knowing we were brothers.

We’d more or less known that our family and the band would be happy for us, but what came as a surprise was when Vegan took a photo of us kissing and put it on Instagram. Not a single comment was negative. Every single one of them was about how happy people were for us, how cute we looked together, and how glad people were the law had changed so we could be together.

Just over three years after we’d gotten rid of ‘Faceless’, on Halloween, Tom and I got married. We’d spent some time talking over our choice of date before we’d set it in stone, worried that it might be cliché, but we’d finally decided that between our love for the holiday, and the weird stuff that had happened to us; Halloween was really the only day either of us could picture getting married.

The ceremony went perfectly, despite some people worrying that we might be the victims of a violent protest by people who still didn’t agree with the law. There was no sign of them, though, and we got married and signed the certificate with no problem, and kicked off the reception.

The reception was in full swing, we’d had our first dance; everyone had eaten their fill from the buffet, which was more like a full meal, but set out like a buffet for people to pick and chose what they wanted; the bar had opened; and the DJ had started up, so the dance floor was full of half drunk people attempting to dance.

Tom and I had agreed not to drink, and we were currently making our rounds of the room. We were talking to our parents, three of our grandparents, and my band, who were well on their way to tipsy.

We were talking about our family, mostly about several aunts and uncles that were already hammered and throwing some seriously ridiculous shapes a few feet from us, when dad made a comment about the lack of men on mum’s side of the family.  
“You know, now that you mention it, I think Liv was the first male born into my family in a few hundred years, the mid 1700’s, I think. That’s why mum, and most of the women, in fact, kept their own names, to keep the family name going.” Mum replied, looking to Nan for confirmation.

Almost as soon as Nan agreed, that it had in fact been the 1740’s since the last male before me; Tom grabbed my hand and started tugging me away, motioning to the others to follow, since Vegan had disappeared to the bar.

As soon as we had some privacy, Tom stopped and we huddled around him. I squeezed his hand, unable to hide the worry on my face, and he smiled reassuringly, then looked around at all of us.  
“Mum’s maiden name was Rutter.” He told us as softly as he could without being drowned out by the music.  
“That’s nice, Tom, but why did we need privacy to talk about that?” Nicholls asked with a grin, making Tom roll his eyes.  
“Haven’t we heard that name before?” He prompted, looking at each of us in turn for some recognition, but their faces were as blank as mine.  
“Edward Rutter! Mum’s related to the guy ‘Faceless’ was after!” He huffed, and it clicked.  
“You don’t think that’s why he went after Liv, do you?” Lee asked with a frown, and we all looked to Jordan. If anyone knew, it would be him.  
“It makes sense, those kind of things, if they can’t get revenge from the person that wronged them, they tend to go after the first-born son. ‘Faceless’ clearly didn’t get his revenge from Edward when he was alive, so he would’ve gone after his first-born son. If you were the first male to be born since Edward died, that technically makes you the first-born son.” He reasoned, and none of us could find any fault with it. I was satisfied now that I knew why I’d been targeted, and we returned to the party. 

I had nothing to worry about now. I had my husband and my best friends by my side, and we had the rest of our lives in front of us. What could go wrong?


End file.
